The Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, Justice B R Gavai and Justice Surya Kant on January 28, 2020 allowed the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to introduce the African cheetah to a suitable habitat in India.
- The bench said that African cheetahs could be introduced to the wild in a “carefully chosen location”.
- NTCA had sought permission to introduce the African cheetah from Namibia.
- Supreme Court also set up a three-member committee, comprising former Director of Wildlife Institute of India Ranjit Singh, DG of Wildlife Institute of India Dhananjay Mohan, and DIG, Wildlife, Ministry of Environment and Forests, to ‘guide’ the NTCA.
About Asiatic Cheetah
- The word ‘cheetah’ is derived from the Sanskrit chitraka, which means ‘spotted’. The earliest visual evidence of the Asiatic cheetah, dating back to 2500 to 2300 BCE, is found in cave paintings in Kharvai and Khairabad, and in the upper Chambal valley, in Madhya Pradesh.
- The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been extirpated, mainly by over-hunting in India in historical times.
- In 1947, Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh of Deoghar of Koriya, Chhattisgarh reportedly killed the last known Asiatic cheetah in India. In 1952, the cheetah was officially declared extinct from India.
- Cheetahs are an endangered species, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).
- The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
- Only 7,100 cheetahs are left in the wild, almost all of them in Africa.
